Galletta's Go-Kart Club and Speedway of Oswego, NY, USA

Galletta's 2007 Race #5: 7/1/2007 35-Lapper:

The Galletta's #3 found its way into victory lane again for the Independence Day 35. However, though the kart has been there countless times before, the driver is someone new! In a surprise upset victory, Matt's girlfriend Melissa Gabel accomplished the impossible and won, making her the first female driver to win a race at Galletta's! Several tremendous battles occurred before (sic) and during the race including daring 3-wide kart battles between Matt Stevens, Chris Stevens, Kyle Reuter, and Wesley Stevens! Yet... Melissa beat them all! How? Read on!

2007 Volume #5 DVD:
Contains the June 28th, 2007 races at Oswego Speedway and the July 1st, 2007 races at Galletta's.

The show started late due to an evil and previously banned lava monster from the deep dark domain invading and demanding her husband's go-kart frame and son's motor back (even though we worked on them and stored them for a year so that her son could race with us every week, something he enjoyed until she stopped him from racing with us). This slowed the event badly as motors and karts had to be stripped and changed, and just led to new people understanding why the monster was banned. Unfortunately, her son and 2-year Galletta's veteran driver had to leave too, as the property owner blamed him for his friends forcing a call to the sheriff late last season (he would have to explain what happened to the property owner to return). It is a shame they had to leave, because we enjoyed most of their racing company (we love and miss racing with Ken, Rob and Josh) and help with the karts and track, but the one woman who caused fights and constantly caused trouble had to be asked to not come back because she is a magnet for arguing, fighting, and police visits. In fact, the police never came to the property before, but kept coming because of her arguing and fighting. She would be allowed back if she re-paid missing kart gas and part donations, apologized and promised to never fight again, but we know the likelihood of that it slim to none. Her pride and unwillingness to admit she was wrong stops that. We don't hate her, but we are a friends-and-family backyard track in back of a family-run small business, and we cannot have police visits and fights on our property. Nobody does. Due to the late start time, we were forced to shorten the race from 45 to 35 laps. Here are snapshots from the DVD:

Early in the race, several accidents slowed the event, including this one involving Kyle Reuter catching wheels with Oscar Berry, who then collected Chris Stevens, and Gary Miller (click here for video).

Here is another wreck that saw Gary Miller, a flipping Wesley Stevens, and Missy Berry wrecking in this one (click here for video).

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Even though everybody else had a rough time, Matt Stevens drove under absolutely everybody early in the show and looked to be on his way to his 2nd victory of the year. But his kart began to slow ("My chain tightened up..." he claimed) as the race wore on and he was challenged several times. There were several side-by-side-by-side races all night! Here shows a tremendous 3-kart battle between Matt Stevens (Galletta's #33), Kyle Reuter (Galletta's #0), and Chris Stevens (Galletta's #8) that concluded with Josh Schute (Galletta's #7) crashing into the woods. Click here for the video!

Matt Stevens held strong as Kyle (blown tire) and Chris (heavily bent sprocket) dropped out on the same lap. But Chris hopped in his backup (The Galletta's #5, and he was docked 7 points; the updated points scale for kart-hopping is in the rules section) and worked his way back to the front, challenging Matt as Ogre Stevens (Galletta's #4) was challenging Chris. But with 2 laps to go, Matt, Chris, and Wes all crashed in the 3rd turn as they battled for the lead (watch the video here)! This meant Melissa Gabel (Galletta's #3) held last place for the entire race but then inherits the lead!

Melissa had to hold Matt, Chris, and Wes off for 2 laps to win! Could she be up to the challenge? "Slow and steady wins the race", as Matt and Chris battled feverously back and forth for 2nd, but could not get around Melissa, and she became the 1st female driver to win at Galletta's! Great job Melissa! Now, you can watch the video on her new profile!

Galletta's has ordered some clay, as only 4 of the 14 karts finished the race due to the rough track demolishing so many karts! Meanwhile, and we will begin to get the track in better condition as Oswego Speedway's dirt track operator Jim Losurdo gave us some great tips during the week which we implemented. As for next week's clay delivery, we are taking donations, selling hamburgers and hot dogs, and doing a 50/50 to raise funds to pay for the clay, which will benefit EVERYONE! Now for the results of this weekend's show!